Les Savy Fav / Jai Alai Savant
Epiphany Episcopalian Church; Chicago, IL
“If only we could get this many people to show up for youth group tomorrow,” lamented Les Savy Fav front man Tim Harrington upon taking the stage. Epiphany Episcopal Church was an unorthodox but inspired venue for the merry punk pranksters: when cleared of pews, the worship space provided ample room for fans to gather by the hundreds, had a high-arched ceiling that made for great acoustics, and evoked a gothic atmosphere with enormous stained-glass windows and statuary lurking in the corners, cutting a stark contrast to the band’s hyperactive, noise-laden dance grooves.
Harrington remains one of the most captivating front-men in rock ‘n’ roll today. He tore through the venue like a Ritalin-starved toddler, stalking from one end of the stage to another, over amps and monitors, out into the audience, and even onto a window ledge. The rest of the band seemed content to play the straight man, grinding, occasionally cutting Harrington off when they grew tired waiting for his banter to end.
The set leaned heavily on 2007’s Let’s Stay Friends and singles collection Inches, but classics like “Scouts Honor” and “Who Rocks the Party?” also drew an enthusiastic response from the crowd. The band wrapped up their encore with “Je T’Aime,” a relatively melancholic tale of love lost. Although the band rarely takes itself too seriously, the sight of Harrington poised atop the biggest amp he could find for the song's emotional climax was undeniably moving. However, he still somehow made it to the back of the venue to give concert-goers his best holy-man glad-hand on their way out.
Also worth noting were openers Jai Alai Savant. With their potent mixture of reggae, punk, and prog, they got the evening off to a riveting start. Vamped-out live versions of songs like the dub-influenced “Akebono” pumped up the crowd and effortlessly rose above the typical opening act fair.
Thunderheist / Shad
Nathan Phillips Square; Toronto, ON
Toronto. January. City Hall. -4 degrees. 8:00 PM. Bank-sponsored warm-up tents. Moms. Dads. Kids on shoulders. Disabled elderly people on scooters. Drunk junior high girls. Old people dancing. Tourists. Ice skating. Conversations about property tax. Fire pits. Hot chocolate. Long underwear. The Olympic torch. Snow. Toques. Flasks of rye. Top 40 radio DJs. 3-fingered mittens. Corporate sponsorship. Municipal government placation. Hip-hop? It's the 2009 Toronto WinterCity Festival!
Shad opened the night, with a short but strong set, spitting some of the most clever lines that have come from North of the 49th parallel in a long time. He was accompanied by a live backing band, including some slick work on the ones and twos, with himself adding some acoustic guitar to the mix. The crowd was small but appreciative, especially when he broke into CBC Radio 3-approved "I Get Down" and ended with an ode to life during recession.
During the downtime between sets, the crowd thinned and congregated around fire pits and french fry trucks to stay warm. We're real classy here in Toronto.
When Thunderheist's ferocious emcee Isis took the stage "Suenos Dulces," built on a sample of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams," the crowd began to respond. She was helped by DJ Grahm Zilla, who tweaked the low-end, transforming the ’80s pop classic into dirty crunchy electro-funk. Rapping in Spanish over pulsing electronic grunge, Thunderheist gave the growing audience, now building around the outdoor stage, a taste of the bricolage of baile funk, NYC-style, and a post-colonial "fuck you, let's dance" ethos that has kept asses shaking since her early days in Montreal. Commanding the stage with four B-girls clad in purple Surfstyle jackets, Isis attempted to bring the post-MIA raucous energy of Thunderheist's club shows to a municipal government-sponsored event attended by a huge cross section of the Toronto population. It was a difficult sell, but not insurmountable.
"Dulces" flowed directly into "Bubblegum," and the mass of 14 year olds dancing at the front of the temporary stage went nuts. Having consumed sports bottles of vodka during the Shad set, they were here for the party, as were the 50-something Latin American tourists who were losing their shit, salsa dancing near the back of the crowd. The energy wasn't exactly contagious, but the often-neglected audience of too-young and too-old were keeping the show moving. After every second song, Isis would produce a frustrated but positive laugh while attempting to inspire the crowd to stay warm and start dancing.
Working their way through material from their debut LP, to be released March 31 by Big Dada, the show's intensity began to build with Isis' smooth, non-ironic throwback cadence and nearly flawless flow crashing against Grahm Zilla's consumed-and-regurgitated samples of The Knife's "Heartbeats" and Kool and The Gang's "Jungle Boogie," adding live cowbell and handclaps to the mix. As the electro-duo burst into "Jerk It," their raunchy call to action, for a moment the towering concaves of Toronto's city hall seemed to disappear, the air warmed and the oddly corporate and government environment seemed like a party -- a very strange party -- maybe not one you'd like to attend, but a party nonetheless.
Talking Music: Neko Case in conversation with Callie Khouri
The Herbst Theatre; San Francisco, CA
Almost three years have passed since Neko Case released a new studio album, and it's been a very long wait. Her new album, Middle Cyclone is set to break hearts on March 3. We got a tiny taste of what's to come Wednesday night at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre. As part of the City Arts and Lectures series "Talking Music," Neko Case sat down for an interview with screenwriter Callie Khouri (Thelma and Louise and the Katie Holmes and Queen Latifah stinker, Mad Money) and talked about making music, what's it like to be a tour horse, and her desire to die at the hands of a grizzly bear.
Neko Case is indie music's Flannery O'Connor. Although not from the south, she is a southern storyteller, emphasizing the comedy in the macabre. "I hope people find humor in my death," she says, laughing in response to a question about the gothic undertone of her songs. Callie Khouri says she wants to die a fast death, quick and easy, if death is ever the easy way. Neko disagrees and says she would prefer being mauled to death by a large grizzly bear. And her answer makes me miss the blood of the south. Having recently moved from North Carolina to San Francisco, I'm sick with melancholy for the gas pump-and-deer-studded landscape, the woods on either side of the highway, and the loneliness of empty porches and desolate farms. Then I smack myself and remember that I live in San Francisco.
But I find solace in Neko Case's albums. Each one is a capsule of southern gothic antiquity, and the stories she tells are tiny movies like picture frames in a nickelodeon. Khouri asks Neko if she visualizes her songs like movies. “Yeah, I mean I watched a lot of television as a kid. I learned to think visually before I learned to think like a writer. I could appreciate a picture before I could appreciate a turn of phrase." Learning by visuals is a common process in creative development, but having the capacity to put these visuals into equally stunning lyrics is a rare talent. Neko Case is both a writer's singer and a visual artist's singer. She's Flannery O'Connor meets David Lynch, or the Coen Brothers, combining the uncanny both in word and in picture.
The interview goes stale as Khouri talks about her lover, T-Bone Burnett, name-dropping him so much that I begin to silently curse the day he met Robert Plant, and she tells stories from her own life, which are boring in comparison to Neko's tales of being homeless and working for meager pay: “I was so anemic at one point my boss told me to stop wearing so much makeup. He thought it was pancake makeup, but I was like, no, I’m just really white.”
Khouri finally puts away her pedestrian questions and Neko steps behind the microphone with guitarist Paul Rigby and backing vocalist Kelly Hogan. They begin with the title track off the new album, and Paul Rigby delicately strums his guitar, providing a simple background to Neko’s like-honey voice singing, “Can’t give up acting tough/ It’s all that I’m made of/ Can’t scrape together quite enough/ To ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love.”
Neko can subvert strength with vulnerability in a no way no one else can, not only in her words but with her voice. She can drown out a bulldozer and harmonize with a single cricket. And she’s a fantastic pop singer, obvious enough with The New Pornographers, but also with another new song off Middle Cyclone called “People Got a Lotta Nerve.” She tells us this song was inspired from headlines like, “Lion Kills Man” and “Crocodile Eats Woman.” “Cause, you know, they’re animals and that’s what they do, but people still act shocked,” she says before launching into the twangy upbeat pop number -- but upbeat in a good way, like “John Saw That Number” from Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.
Next is an aching cover of Harry Nilsson’s “Don’t Forget Me,” and I’m reminded why Neko Case would make a better covers album than Cat Power. She plays “Dirty Knife” and ends with “That Teenage Feeling,” the song you might listen to on the radio before a high school prom in Kansas, circa 1954.
She pulls back that wild mane of hair and waves goodbye, providing the shortest Neko Case live experience I’ve witnessed. The audience is a bit stunned. But then I look at my watch and realize that the interview was almost two hours long, so all is forgiven. I walk out into the Pacific air, but I’m thinking of Carolina, where I discovered Neko Case’s music in the back roads of southern tobacco towns, knowing I’m able to carry the south with me in San Francisco because of Neko Case.
Ponytail / These Are Powers / Pattern Is Movement
The Bell House; Brooklyn, NY
It was an eclectic group of East Coast weirdos who emerged last Friday to rock Brooklyn's Bell House. First on the bill was Pattern Is Movement, a beefy, bearded duo from Philly recently cited as one of the hottest bear bands of 2008 (note to bTalk: Dan Deacon in ’09?). As Chris Ward drums with more energy than a skinny guy on meth, Andrew Thiboldeaux takes care of everything else, from keyboards to bass to vocals. And his singing voice is really something -- plaintive, operatic, and sometimes hilariously melodramatic -- recalling Antony Hegarty. The thoroughly enjoyable set ended with an astonishingly on-point cover of D'Angelo's "Untitled (How Does It Feel)."
Next up was the home team, Brooklyn's own These Are Powers, a band I had been hearing about for a while and was excited to check out. Upon releasing their 2007 debut, Terrific Seasons, the trio declared themselves a "ghost-punk" band, and that description actually sounds about right. Performing amidst multi-colored strips of fabric hanging from mic stands and amps, These Are Powers unleashed a storm-like combination of hard-hitting, guitar-and-synth attacks and quiet, ambient moments that almost made me forget I was watching a band perform. By far the most riveting person onstage was vocalist Anna Barie, whose ululations are somewhat reminiscent of Gang Gang Dance's Liz Bougatsos.
While the opening bands brought moments of excitement and repose in equal measure, the headliner left no room for peaceful contemplation. Although I've been following Ponytail for about two years now and have seen them at least five times, the Bell House gig was the first time I saw them in a proper club rather than on the floor of a warehouse or on a makeshift, outdoor stage on the banks of the Gowanus Canal. And I was a bit nervous. Could all that frenetic energy survive in a club setting? Taking the stage in a Baltimore Ravens jersey, with streaks of blacking under her eyes, manic munchkin Molly Siegel answered my question tout de suite: Yes, yes it could. And boy did it.
Ponytail blew through song after song with a genuine enthusiasm, seemingly grateful that the audience's exuberance matched their own. Guitarist Dustin Wong joined Siegel on the mic more frequently than I've seen before, giving her high-pitched yelps and squeaks added dimension. Meanwhile, in the audience, the entire front half of the room transformed into an enormous mosh pit, with ladies and gents bouncing and sweating in harmony (well, except for the lady who was wearing stilettos in the pit and stomping on people's feet. Note to this girl: flat shoes next time, please). At the end of the night, Ponytail did something else I'd never seem them do before: play an encore. And though I was a bit disappointed to see them bow to this tired rock convention, I can't say I minded hearing more.
[Photo: Sean Ruch]
Metronomy
Chop Suey; Seattle, WA
Metronomy mix the silly and the serious: playful falsetto vocals and a song about a girl named Radio Ladio mingle with foreboding synths and austere beats borrowed straight from The Cure. Opening with “Holiday,” the London-based three-piece started off their set at Seattle's Chop Suey playing with an intensity that was more inline with their serious side. However, the lights soon dimmed and the chest-mounted tap lights began switching on and off with the music. Suddenly, Metronomy started resembling Devo more than The Cure.
Singer/guitarist Joseph Mount sounded apprehensive when he asked the audience, “This is our first time in Seattle, can we make Sunday a Funday?” but the synchronized saluting, magic fingers, and revenge-of-the-nerds dancing (especially well-executed by bassist Gabriel Stebbing) certainly got the crowd going. Although the turnout for the Sunday-night gig was tiny, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show where such a high percentage of the audience was dancing. Aside from a few onlookers staked out at the bar, everyone was gathered close to the stage and dancing wildly or at least shuffling rhythmically.
With the exception of a blistering melodica solo and some extra keyboard lines provided by Oscar Cash, none of the songs were changed from their studio incarnations. But I didn’t mind, and no one else seemed to either. Any band that can combine the hilarious and the heartfelt as well as Metronomy gets my recommendation.
Fucked Up
Outback Lodge; Charlottesville, VA
I once saw Jose Gonzalez perform, and the audience sat in cross-legged silence as the troubadour covered The Knife, Kylie Minogue, and Joy Division. This Fucked Up show was the opposite of that Jose Gonzalez show. Singer Father Damien began the set wearing a gold baseball hat, jeans, and some kind of shirt. About three songs in, the imposing front man had stripped to his underwear, coiling his head with the microphone cord and exposing a field of back hair for a throbbing sea of adoring moshers and crowd surfers. He hopped a short wall bordering the stage and partied with those of us near the bar; a pair of girls pleaded for me to shield them, and I think he kissed a guy on the mouth.
Between political ramblings on whether or not the band is fascist (I have no idea what he was talking about) and vivid commentary on the Canadian bus decapitator, Fucked Up assaulted the intimate venue with some of the most aggressive playing I've witnessed in a long time. As fans of the Canadian punks will recognize, the band is fantastic at blending ferocious hardcore with melodic undercurrents in a way that recalls classic Hüsker Dü. The band’s brutal live musicianship and Damien’s guttural vocals tended to stress these hardcore roots at the expense of the melody, but there were moments of softness to pull it all together, making it possible for everyday hipsters to enjoy the tunes alongside Zoloft-popping James Dean look-alikes and menacing grindcore toughs.
